By: Tashbih Sayyed, Ph.D.
There are strong signs that Taliban are on their way back to reoccupying Afghanistan, and it appears that this time they might be welcomed by the people. This change in popular attitude is not because the masses have forgotten Taliban's harsh, retrogressive and restrictive ideology but simply because they miss the peace and stability that they enjoyed under Taliban rule - a feat that neither the US led coalition forces nor the Washington backed Karzai government has been able to replicate despite being in power for five years.
The reluctance of the post Taliban administration to identify the real culprits has resulted in its failure to create a safe and secure social environment for the masses. The insecurity has resulted in wide spread human rights violations and sufferings for the man on the street. Since the face of the oppressor and the exploiter is not so obscure, it is not difficult for the victim to find the real source of the trouble.
And in this case the responsible party is not Taliban but the US backed Karzai administration. Taliban has taken advantage of the situation. Just like Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon, it has stepped in and now providing relief to the affected winning hearts and minds in the process.
Any incompetence on the part of the Afghan administration resulting in the deteriorating law and order situation gives rise to the public anger toward the US, as it is the real power behind the Kabul government. Since the real causes behind the worsening law and order situation are not being investigated, many pro-American circles find themselves forced to ask if we really want to win this war in Afghanistan. Every passing day without finding a way to redress the public grievances is helping Taliban consolidate their hold on the popular heart and mind.
The support for Taliban at the grass roots level has become so obvious that there is a growing feeling among some lawmakers in Washington that this war on Islamist terror in Afghanistan cannot be won without Taliban being accepted as partners in any future negotiations for peace. US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is urging support for efforts to bring "people who call themselves Taliban" into the government. Frist said he learned from military briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated on the battlefield.
Afghan experts do not agree with Frist's conclusion. They believe that since most of the law and order problems within Afghanistan are caused by elements other than the Taliban, they will not go away just by engaging Taliban. The problems, according to the analysts, can only be solved by identifying the real culprits and by making them pay for their crimes.
A serious study of the composition of the traditional Afghan society will reveal that the ordinary Afghan has always remained at the mercy of strongmen. And Taliban were not one of them. In fact Taliban rose to power in response to the highhandedness of these very strongmen. Any serious effort to remedy the situation will have to be made by acknowledging that Taliban are not the only factor keeping Afghanistan in chaos.
Observers point out that administration's policy of blaming everything on Taliban and reluctance to recognize the role played by the strong men in terrorizing the population has allowed these criminals to continue with their game of extortion and smuggling with impunity creating a favorable environment for the Taliban to stage their come back.
Any student of Afghan history can tell that Afghanistan has a warlord problem-military factions dominate government and national institutions, including local governments and the army, police, and intelligence services. Talk to any Afghan and he will tell you that it is the local factional leaders and the private militias that the masses are afraid of. According to Human Rights Watch, Afghans are not worried about the Taliban insurgency but the local militias or warlords they refer to as jangsalaran in their native tongues of Dari and Pushto.
According to a Human Rights Watch briefing paper issued in September 2004, "Political repression by local strongmen is the principal problem. Throughout the country, militarized political factions-militias and remnants of past Afghan military forces who came into power in the wake of the Taliban's defeat-continue to cement their hold on political power at the local level, using force, threats, and corruption to stifle more legitimate political activity.
Independent political organizers unaffiliated with factions or their militia forces are facing death threats and harassment and are struggling just to organize. Some politically active Afghan men and women, potential leaders who would otherwise be eager to take part in the political life of their country, have instead already opted out of the process, or are very cautious in their activities, literally afraid for their lives. Women, both as voters and as political actors, remain marginalized.
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Many worry that President Hamid Karzai does not have any power base of his own. He is neither a warlord nor an arms smuggler. He doesn't have any militia at his command or a tribe loyal to him. In order to stay in power, he has to depend on the very people who have an interest in keeping the country in a state of lawlessness. According to a political organizer, "in politics here today whatever the gunmen want ultimately happens. We don't know what kind of democracy this is."
When the US led coalition forces ousted Taliban, the ordinary Afghan hoped that the post Taliban regime will improve on Taliban created peace. But he was mistaken. The warlords and drug czars were a dominant part of the post Taliban administration. They came down on the helpless masses with a vengeance. But now the people have a choice - they can always invite the Taliban back.
According to NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Richards, Afghanistan is at a tipping point. He warned that the Afghans would likely switch their allegiance to resurgent Taliban militants if there are no visible improvements in people's lives in the next six months.
General Richards said that the Taliban have made a comeback in the south and east of the country and are seriously threatening Western attempts to stabilize the country after almost three decades of war. "If we collectively ... do not exploit this winter to start achieving concrete and visible improvement," then some 70 percent of Afghans could switch sides.
A UN Development Program report on Afghanistan has already warned in the past that if the international community does not intervene by addressing people's grievances, Afghanistan will collapse into an insecure state, a threat to its own people and to the international community.
As far as the independent observers are concerned the solution is very simple. We will only have to decide if we really want to win this war in Afghanistan. If the answer is yes than we will have to address people's grievances first.
And we can do that by acknowledging that the northern alliance leaders helped us in demolishing the Taliban emirate not because they loved our democracy or agreed with charter of human rights. They helped us because they wanted to get rid of their historical rivals - the Pushtun tribes.
And Taliban happened to be Pushtuns. Now if we really want to win this war on Islamist terror in Afghanistan we will have to broaden our vision and understanding of the Afghan affairs - warlords, drug barons, arms smugglers and crime syndicates have always been a part of this region and they are as serious a threat to the open societies as Taliban.
They all support and sponsor poppy cultivation. They are all totalitarian in their world view and they all will have to be tamed, controlled and made to feel accountable to civilized code of conduct. Otherwise ordinary Afghanistan will have no interest in backing up the administration that harbors and nourishes his exploiters.
(Tashbih Sayyed is the Editor in Chief of Pakistan Today and The Muslim World Today, President of Council for Democracy and Tolerance, an adjunct fellow of Hudson Institute, and a regular columnist for newspapers across the world.)
